Under My Thumb
by Embracing the Sea
Summary: Jame "Buffalo Bill" Gumb has a disturbing sense of a relationship with a hostage. Jame Gumb/OC. OneShot.


A/N: I watched Silence of the Lambs in english class and the writer in me came up with this oneshot. I got the title from the Rolling Stones's song _Under My Thumb_. I think it goes with Jame and the OC's relationship. Ted Levine's cool, Buffalo Bill's a freaky weirdo, but he is a hell of a character. This is just an opinion if he had a relationship with a girl and how he would interact with her.

_Under My Thumb_

Liv panicedly sat in the bedroom of her captor. _Alone _by Colin Newman played on repeat on the record player in the basement dungeon.

_Alone, with too much generosity_  
_A theatre mask of hostility attracts_  
_Assaults occur, infrequently_  
_And those who come, to conquer?_  
_Need strength_  
_But damage accumulates..._

Ironically enough, that's how she felt.

Alone.

The basement had many rooms to it. His bedroom, where he sewed the women; a embalming room where he skinned the women, a room filled with Death's-Head moths, and the room in the farthest end of the basement. The dark, dreary room that had a large well in the flooring. When he was gone, Liv looked around the bedroom. He pinned up pictures and newspaper articles to the walls. They were the only news from the outside world that was available to her, and that was the only way she discovered news. Most recently, he pinned up newspaper articles about him.

She thanked God that at least people knew that he was out there, that they knew he was a serial killer, that she had some hope. The latest newspaper article read _Bill Skins Fifth_, detailing his latest murder. One of the sub-headline read _You Better Beware, Stay Clear of Buffalo Bill_. It made her tremble with fear, reading it in the newspaper. She had seen glimpses of him do it. She had heard him do it.

The public called him Buffalo Bill.

She grimaced when she saw the "Woman Suit" that he obsessed over in the corner of the room, displayed on one of the many mannequins in the room. Skin from victims that he'd murdered, overweight women that had had the unfortunate opportunity of meeting Jame "Buffalo Bill" Gumb in the dark, and not lived to tell the tale.

She, on the other hand, had been living in the dark and dreary basement of the house, a home in a dumpy neighborhood in Belvedere, Ohio. The room in which he kept her was his main room, where he sewed and where he slept. She had not seen sunlight in a year, and her appearance was clear of that.

She was a skinny, lean thing, always had been. She had a mess of pale blond hair that was to her breasts, and brown eyes that pleaded for mercy every time she looked him in the eyes.

Dark circles bagged under her eyes, and bruises stained her upper arms.

Her lip was jaggedly cut.

Liv wore nothing but black underwear and a white tank top, what she had slept in the night before.

Her ribs were bluntly sticking out of her skin, but she was used to being starved. Liv's body had grown to be used to the neglect she received from him. She never really trusted what he gave her, anyway, and within the first six months she realized nothing really mattered to her anymore.

She had learned that begging with him was useless, that pleading with a man like Buffalo Bill was utterly senseless. She learned that he had no limits, no mercy. At least, that she knew of. She was his longest lasting victim, being trapped in the dark, cold basement for a year now.

What truly upset her to no end is that she knew that no one would go looking for her.

She had been a drifter, a rolling stone, who had never stayed in one place for too long. She had been born in San Francisco to two drug-addled, hippie parents. Her mother had split when she was three, and her father had been a drunk who had died from alcoholism when she was ten. She'd been adopted at eleven, then was on her own from eighteen on. At the age of twenty-five, she was living in Chicago when she had been kidnapped.

No one knew she was missing, no one knew she existed. She didn't have many friends, merely acquaintances, seeing as she moved around so often. People that wouldn't know she had gone missing.

The only one who knew she existed was Buffalo Bill, and just thinking about that made her want to sob until she couldn't breathe anymore.

She wondered why he had kept her alive so long. He had abused her, yes, but never killed her. He had hit her, yelled at her, and raped her in the year they had been together.

Liv considered herself lucky that he hadn't gotten her pregnant or broken any of her bones within the year she was kept hostage.

But he never skinned her or shot her or even _threatened_ to kill her. Every other girl that he brought into the cold basement and thrown down that makeshift well had been shot, skinned, and dumped somewhere within one to two weeks.

The worst thing about it was that Liv had had conversations with these women, shouting from the basement bedroom to the well in order to talk. When he was gone, Liv was usually chained up to a pole in the middle of the all-wooden paneled bedroom by a chain linked around her foot.

It scarred her mentally to hear those girls screaming, yelling profanities in frustration, then suddenly begging to Buffalo Bill to let them live. They all said the same things, over and over.

_I just want to go home!_

_Let me go, you fucking bastard!_

_Please, mister, don't do this to me. Please!_

_Please let me out!_

Remembering the screams of the young women that he kept in the well made her want to vomit, remembering their innocent, pleading voices beg him to stop what he was doing. Every time she heard them, Liv would shake her head to herself, silent tears rolling down her dirt-stained face, chained up in his bedroom. The only time she ever saw the women was when he was sewing them together.

Liv had vomited more than once when he was sewing the decaying skin together, as well as when he was skinning the women. He would either hit her for throwing up in the bedroom, or act like she was a child or his dog, a fluffy white thing named Precious, that he was obsessed with. If he was in a good mood, he'd cup his hands around her face, ask her gently if she was okay, and rake a hand through her hair. She would tremble in his arms and nod nervously, terrified of him. Nevertheless, she had grown tired of trying to fight him off, so she never tried anymore if he laid his hands on her.

She really did wonder why Buffalo Bill kept her around.

She wasn't overweight, so he wasn't starving her to skin her. He never yelled at her to rub lotion on her body like he freakishly did to all the other girls. If he was planning to, he would have done it already. She didn't have anything special about her.

For the life of her, Liv could _not_ figure out why he kept her.

It was almost like she was his pet, as if she was the only link to normalcy in his otherworldly, dark and disturbing life.

The two of them oddly were fit for each other, Liv hated to admit to herself, but she knew it was true. He was lonely, a serial killer freak who killed women and had deeply disturbing psychological issues. He was emotionally unhinged, and it was like walking on broken glass every time she spoke to him.

On the other hand, she had this weird sense of control over him. She had the ability to calm him down occasionally when he was in one of his fits, where he would absolutely lose it and freak out. She could soothe him, persuade him to let whichever girl was in the well to live a few more days if he suddenly snapped to the conclusion to kill them out of fury and frustration. She talked to him, something she guessed no one had ever done to him before, and that broke him down from time to time.

Other times, Liv wasn't quick enough in her soothing method, and she'd get his fist to her jaw or a slap in the face mid-sentance. She'd gotten a bloody nose before or a black eye, and they had healed over time. Still, it was painful to be struck like that, especially by a man like him. He was fit and powerful, and he knew it.

No matter what he did to her, she never berated him.

She tried to soothe his pain. Not in fear that he would kill her, because Liv learned over their months together that he never would, but because she didn't want his deep psychological scarring any deeper. She didn't want him to go out on a killing spree or suddenly snap and murder the current girl in the well.

Liv began not fearing his dominance and power, and eventually she had the ability to see right through him.

Sometimes she worried that she was beginning to develop Stockholm Syndrome for Buffalo Bill, that she had been with him so long that she felt badly for him and caref about him. She felt close to her captor, like she belonged to him. He felt a deep emotional bond to her, and she to him.

Their conversations were odd. He sometimes spoke to her like a normal human being; calm, sensible. She would listen whole-heartedly and watch him, while he told her whatever was on his mind at the current moment in time, spilling his guts to her with no filter. Then there were other times were he would just lose it for no reason at all. He would yell and scream or humiliate her.

She felt a sense of empathy towards him that disturbed her deeply. They had both been from broken homes and had an awful childhood. They were lonely and pretty anti-social.

In a fucked up way, Liv knew that all they really had in the world was each other.

No one else.

The thought drifted in and out of her mind from time to time, and it sickened her to know and realize that it was the truth.

After realizing she didn't have the ability to fight him after the first few months, Liv had grown to accept him being around and being his only surviving link to the normal world. She watched him work, disturbed. She listened to him when he ranted. He'd opened up to her. He let her into his twisted, fucked-up world.

Early on she tried to fight him off, but it was impossible. He was in his early thirties, about six foot, one hundred forty pounds and fit, and highly intellectual. His pale, nefarious looking blue eyes watched her like a snake, watching her every move when he was around her. There was no getting around him.

His eyes, Liv noticed, were everlastingly watching her. They were beautiful, his eyes. But they were wicked and sinister.

Liv's heart beat loudly in her chest, throbbing so hard that she thought it was going to hit her ribcage.

She heard his familiar footsteps descend down the staircase from the main house. She knew he had captured a new victim, a daughter of a US Senator. Liv swore the girl's name was Catherine...Martin, was it? She had been screaming and yelling all while he had been gone, and Liv tried to block it out. There wasn't anything she could do for this poor girl.

Liv brought her scrawny knees to her chest quickly in instinctive fear once Bill's footsteps came within earshot. He had traumatized her.

She could hear yelling between Catherine and Buffalo Bill, then she heard his footsteps storming through the hallway connector between the well room and his bedroom. She could her Precious's barking loudly echoing in the well. Catherine must've taken her.

Liv _hated_ that dog.

"_Fuck_!"

His voice, deep as always, rang in her ears as he entered the room. He wore grey sweatpants that hung just barely above his crotch. He didn't have a shirt on, exposing a fit, masculine abdomen and chest with his tattoo on his right ribcage. A silver nipple ring hung off his left nipple.

He stormed in, infuriated. His fists were clenched, his upper arm muscles and forearms clenched and contracted in fury.

He_ looked_ furious, swinging his arm and sending a mannequin crashing to the ground by Liv's feet with a _bang_. She looked up at him, furrowing her eyebrows in worry. She didn't want him to hit her tonight, so she prepared herself to calm the serial killer in front of her.

"Jame—" Liv said quietly.

He sent another mannequin flying, out of his mind with fury.

"Fuck!" He snarled loudly, his voice deep.

Liv winced at his yelling. The Senator's daughter must have said something to really set him off, Liv guessed, so now she would have to calm him down before he did anything really drastic.

"That fucking_ bitch_! Goddamnit!" He snarled, reaching under a quilt on the bed and pulling out a revolver. "_It doesn't know what pain is_! I'll show that fat bitch pain!"

Liv was always disturbed that when he captured these women, he referred to them as an "it". Like he de-humanized them. It truly scared her, and she wondered why he didn't refer to her as an "it". He occasionally called her Liv, but other than that he didn't say her name.

Liv, on the other hand, used his name quite a lot. She guessed that it helped feign trust with her on his side, that treating him like he mattered would be in her favor, that he wouldn't lash out at her.

"Jame," Liv said in a desperate beg, "Don't do it yet. It isn't worth it. It really isn't."

He turned to look at her with those pale blue eyes, with a wolfish look on his masculine face. He sauntered over to her, the gun still in his hand. He looked murderous with a crazed, furious look in his eyes, "You seriously fucking think that it's okay for that bitch to take my dog?"

Liv trembled, looking into his pale eyes as they glared back at her terrified face. Her blood ran cold under her skin, chilling her veins.

"No...no, I-I-I didn't mean it like that..." Liv stammered, her eyes wide with terror.

He glared at her with irritation, and Liv flinched back in fear, the chain jangling with her body movements.

"It took my dog!" He wailed, yelling at her. "I swear I'll kill that bitch! I'lll show it what pain _really_ is if it hurts Precious!"

Liv daringly reached out as far as she could go and put her hand over his own, his finger tips beat up from all the sewing. His fingers had multiple silver rings on each one. He stiffened at her touch, but eased once she feigned a weak smile at him. He looked at her, his expression relaxing.

She hated to admit it - absolutely hated to - but she and him were actually _close_, emotionally.

"Not yet," Liv begged, "She needs to stay alive. It isn't worth it. Jame, _please_."

He seemed frustrated, not sure whether to listen to Liv or kill Catherine for taking the dog. Liv stared up at him pleadingly, her eyes begging him for any kind of mercy. She prayed that this once that he would give Catherine mercy.

"It took Precious." He snapped at her, and Liv knew she was going to have to quickly calm the serial killer down, or at least distract him, before he killed Catherine. He repeated, "It hurt my dog, Liv! Now I can't get her back."

Liv replied, begging, "It's okay. You'll get her back. I'm sure Precious is okay."

He looked at her, and hesitantly put the revolver on the sewing desk nearby. Liv's heart slowed in relief, but stared at him with anxiousness, a bit scared of what he was going to do next. Her hand still on his, she rested it on his forearm gently as the two stood face-to-face. He looked at her arm and then up to her face, examining her with his eyes.

"Darling, are you okay?" He said in reply.

Liv felt the blood run cold in her veins again. His emotions were so unhinged that he snapped from one emotion to the next within seconds. He was referring to the bruise on her upper right cheekbone, where he had slammed his fist into a week before in a rage. It was still tender, the blood behind the skin purple and black.

Liv wondered what he meant when he called her darling. He did it often, she noticed. He called Precious that, too. Was he being affectionate, or was he treating her like a pet?

"It's just a bruise," Liv choked out, a silent tear streaking down her face and hitting her cut lip, "I'll be okay."

He stroked her face. His pale, wolfish blue eyes examined her. She shut her eyes as he did so, a tear escaping from her closed lids, streaking down her cheek. She bit her lip and opened her eyes again, looking up at him with a small, sad smile.

Buffalo Bill's hands snaked around her hips slowly, his fingers curling around them deviantly. Liv gasped quietly at the sudden contact, and looked down to her hips, watching him as he hooked his ringed fingers through the top lining of her underwear.

His hands examined her body, fingering her skin. Liv watched him in horror, as his cigarette-stained fingertips traced and felt her flesh, his cold hands making goosebumps form on her skin. She felt his hands feel her, and a chill run through her spine as he felt her bare flesh.

_He could skin you right now, if he really wanted to. _Liv thought to herself, watching her captor with tears brimming her eyes.

"So beautiful." He murmured in his deep voice, not looking at her face.

Liv's eyes grew wide with horror as she realized.

He was admiring her _flesh_.

She was his stolen property. Kidnapped in the night by Jame Gumb.

Liv kept completely still, knowing that the last time she tried to fight him he had slapped her hard across the face, practically strangled her on the hardwood bedroom floor, and proceeded with violating her no matter what she said or how loud she screamed. She remembered him attacking her. Her heart beating quickly, throbbing and thudding, pressing up to her ribcage, hot tears streaming down her face, her mess of blond hair sprawled out of the floor as he held her down. He obviously overpowered her with his body. She remembered her fingernails digging into his flesh of his bare back.

She remembered, wailing and sobbing, sprawled out and squirming on the floor beneath him.

He stopped fingering her skin. He looked up at her suddenly with his nefarious blue eyes.

He kept looking at her straight in the eyes when slid her underwear off, the black undergarments slipping off and falling around her ankles in a pile.

She felt pure nakedness and humiliation as his beautifully disturbed eyes burned holes in her skin, studying her. Liv felt the tears welling up in her eyes, and she began trembling. She knew he didn't do this for the pleasure, or at least she didn't think so.

To him it was all about dominance—to remind her she was his, he was the boss; that she was lucky to still be breathing.

Or so she thought.

He took her forearm and flung her to the bed, which just made the length of the chain so that she laid down. Her breath quickened, her heart thumping in her chest so loud she thought Buffalo Bill could hear it.

She laid there on her back, vunerable and exposed as he climbed on top of her, pulling down his pants enough to be able to get into her.

"_Don't_," She pleaded, but she was ignored.

He pinned her arms above her head, his palms cupping her wrists back so that she stayed down. Liv's breaths were loud and quick, and she yelped in pain and shock when he went into her.

"Jame,_ stop_—" She choked out, tears rolling down her face and hitting her lips, "_Please."_

It hurt. She laid there as he pressed his mouth to hers, shutting her up without words.

Tears streaked down her dirtied face as he worked into her. He went deep inside of her, making her back arch up in pain. She shrieked in pain, but wasn't even able to clutch onto his back for support because he was holding her down. As he thrusted into her, he buried his face in the crook of her neck.

Her toes curled in pain, and her body trembled. Buffalo Bill's ankles intertwined with hers.

He didn't pay any attention to her cries.

As Liv laid there, she heard the frantic screaming of the Senator's daughter in the makeshift well, Precious's annoyingly loud barking, and her and Buffalo Bill's heavy breathing. She shut her eyes as the tears rolled down her cheeks, mentally trying to be somewhere else, _anywhere_ but there. Anywhere but in the dark, cold basement prison of infamous serial killer Buffalo Bill. She was his property, and his obsession.

She was his.


End file.
